


Untouchable

by Empress_Of_Edenia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Day 5: AU, F/M, Romantic Soulmates, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Shiro Ship Week 2018, not exactly a cheerful story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 23:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empress_Of_Edenia/pseuds/Empress_Of_Edenia
Summary: All his life, Takashi Shirogane has been told that he will meet a special someone. Just like everyone back at home did, when they were his age. He's never had to worry about it or give it much thought. But now, in the middle of an intergalactic war, his destiny has come to rear its ugly head.





	Untouchable

General Axca collapsed at Shiro’s feet after he sliced through her armor and her neck.

She collapsed in a heap on the floor, writhing in agony from the severe beating he’d dealt her. If her comrades came to her aid in time, she might live through it. But with Prince Lotor fighting the rest of Team Voltron onboard the Sincline, Axca’s chances were slim. Shiro’s mission practically accomplished itself.

The only obstacle left in his way was the fourth general in the prince’s rogues’ gallery, a reptilian woman Shiro heard the others refer to as Narti. She hissed as Shiro approached her, readying her stance. Her great tail swished behind her, while Kova perched atop her shoulders and arched his back.

“Tell me you found that computer data junk,” buzzed Lance’s voice through the comms in Shiro’s helmet. He sounded like he was in a tight situation.

“Yep, I’m in. And it looks like I’ve got company,” Shiro said.

“Dude, do we need to come down there or…?” Hunk asked him.

“I’ve got a plan,” Shiro answered. He fixed his eyes on Narti, holding up his weaponized arm to defend himself. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“Call us if anything and be sure to let me know when you get to that computer as soon as possible,” Pidge said, emphasizing that last requirement.

“Roger that.” Shiro tuned out the sounds of his teammates, for now. All of his thoughts cleared themselves so that he could think of nothing but the last hurdle that kept him from getting to his end goal. Shiro leapt forward in a charge, his feet barely scraping the floor as he glided.

Narti also charged ahead. She dove out of the way of his swipe, which was exactly what he wanted.

Shiro snatched Kova right off of her shoulder. He thrashed in Shiro’s grasp, but he never once let the cat go. With his hand over Kova’s mouth, clamped down as tight as he could manage, Shiro cut off Kova’s airway in the most humane way he knew of.

Kova stopped moving after a while. But Shiro could tell he was still breathing, the cat’s pulse thrumming against his palm.

Shiro laid Kova on the floor to let the animal get some rest. He deserved it, in Shiro’s opinion. The black paladin would not be so kind to his owner, unfortunately. 

With her seeing eye guide gone, Narti’s stance looked less confident in posture, her head turning this way and that to pick up on any sound to tell her what was going on. This fight was far from over, but her confusion helped turn it in Shiro’s favor.   


He advanced on her, arm primed and ready.   


Narti heard the sting of his arm activating and raised her tail. It caught him by the radius, coiling tight around it. She threw him onto the ground.   


Shiro landed on his side. But as he went down, he turned up the heat setting on his prosthesis to its highest. He ripped it from her grasp once she released him.   


She let out what could only be described as a snarling scream as she stumbled back and away from the searing metal. Plumes of smoke wafted up to his nose from where he’d burned her, the flesh sizzling and leaving a terrible odor in his midst.   


While still on the floor, Shiro swung his prosthetic arm at her leg to try and bring her to his level.   


Narti jumped out of the way, but not in time. The cut on her thigh oozed dark green blood and seeped into the purple of her uniform.   


He leapt to his feet and charged once more, this time going for a punch in the face.   


She caught his fist, then pulled it aside and connected her own fist to his mouth. She cracked the surface of his helmet’s visor in the process.   


Crimson dripped from the corners of his mouth and his nose. He grabbed where she hit him, trying to keep it from running down his chin more than it already was.   


At the same time, the both of them lifted their leg to kick at the other. He raised it to plant his foot into her stomach, while she got hers as close to his ear as she could.   


She would’ve knocked him on his ass again, had Shiro not blocked her with his gauntlet. He shoved her backwards and pinned her underneath him with his boot. “It’s time to end this,” he said, his arm glowing brighter than he was used to.   


Narti struggled to get up, but he pushed her down every time. Her tail too damaged to use and without any other means of defense, she settled for clawing at the armor on his shin to rip it off and bite him.   


Shiro wouldn’t give her that chance. Once the arm was fired up, he swung it in a downward chop that would slice through to her heart. It would end her quickly enough. He knew that for a fact, given the amount of extraterrestrials Zarkon’s men had forced him to use it on. His hand cut through the air as if nothing could stop his fluid motion, until something did. Something unseen by the both of them, yet it held him firm. 

“What the hell…?” he muttered, pulling it back for a split second. Of all times for his arm to malfunction, it _had_ to be now. Just his luck. Shiro went in for the kill a second time, but wound up stuck in the exact same spot. He stared in horror at his own body.   


Deciding it was worth it to try using her tail again, Narti shifted under Shiro so that the appendage could wrap around his trim waist. She winced in obvious pain, but managed to lift him off of her before she sent him soaring across the room.   


If it weren’t for his cuirass and the extra padding of a jet pack, slamming into the computer would’ve been the end of this fight. That didn’t mean Shiro was perfectly alright, though, as he shook on trembling legs while coming to stand. His head hung to stare at the large black V on his breastplate, his breaths coming in short and shallow. 

Narti was on her feet by the time he looked up. She followed the sounds of his breathing until they were face to face, with only a few inches between them. Her long, clawed fingers reached out for him.   


Shiro went to grab her wrists, but she weaved her hands right past him. His mind slipped from his hold as she laid her hands on his chest. The world around Shiro grew dim with a purple haze. Apparently, he had overlooked one more power in this woman’s arsenal. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t form his own words or actions. All that filled his head were the words spoken to him by an unfamiliar voice. Narti’s voice.   


_Do it_ , she said. _End your own life, human_.   


“End my own life…” he repeated with a slur. He floated in this haze for what seemed like forever, using all he had left to crawl his way out of it. He saw his arm get closer to his stomach where there was nothing to protect it, the fingers locked in place as they pointed towards his gut. Shiro squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on breaking free. ‘Come on, almost there,’ he told himself, prying his other hand up from his hip.   


In doing this, Shiro noticed something off about Narti. He should’ve been dead by now, the scorching heat of his fingers was so close to grazing his undersuit. But no matter how much she was pushing her mind control powers, Narti couldn’t get his arm to budge.   


Her telepathic voice echoed in his head again. _Why won’t it move? Why can’t I get it to move?!_   


She wasn’t doing this on purpose, then. A thought occurred to him as they both struggled. There was a way to disprove his theory, but he’d have to act fast. Finally, Shiro regained control. He smacked her hands from his chest with the help of his gauntlet’s shield, then rammed that shield into Narti as his jet pack shot him forward.   


He’d repay her in kind and slam her into a console he saw on his way in. It would kill her for certain if he was wrong. It had to.   


Shiro grimaced as the crunching sound of her neck filled the base. He kept his weight on her to drive the impact home, then stepped back. He watched for any signs of life from her crumpled body. He let out a relieved sigh while she still lay there. There was no curse or magical bond he needed to fear for the rest of his life. Nothing to get in the way of the mission. All of that optimism drained from his face when her body started twitching.   


She struggled to stand and stayed in one spot while her bones snapped themselves back into place, but his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Narti was still alive.   


He shook his head in terror with a hand to his mouth as he stepped further away. No, no this couldn’t be right. Narti couldn’t be the one everyone told him he would someday meet. Shiro refused to believe it. This woman helped an exiled prince enslave countless planets across the universe and felt justified in aiding Lotor. He wouldn’t be tied to someone like her. Shiro fired up his arm again.   


Before he could try and sever the bond a third time, Narti wrapped her hands around his throat. She hooked her leg around his knees and brought him to them. _You will no longer get in my way_ , she said, crushing his windpipe.   


The last thing he saw was his own expression mirrored in the sleek exoskeleton of her face plate as she towered above him. Spots flitted behind his eyes as he lost more and more oxygen. She left him there to suffocate, but Shiro knew he wouldn’t die.   


Because he understood now that he could not.   


Shiro was alone when he eventually came to, Lotor’s generals nowhere in sight. He took this opportunity to rise up and head for the computer. Every step seemed to take him years, though he continued on. Radio static crackled and fizzled in his ears, the shouts of his teammates mingled in with the damaged feedback.   


“Shiro, hey! Can you hear me?” Lance called out.   


“Yeah…” Shiro grunted as he shuffled, “loud and clear.”   


The blue paladin sighed in relief. “Oh, thank _quiznak_. You had us all worried back there.”   


“Indeed. Welcome back, Shiro,” Allura greeted.   


“How long was I out for? I can’t remember,” he told them.   


“Hmm, I’d say about half of a varga,” Pidge said. “Or maybe closer to sixty doboshes.”   


“Well, that’s always encouraging,” Shiro remarked dryly.   


For the first time since they left the Castle of Lions, Keith spoke. “Did you get the data?”   


“I’m about to. Just give me a tick,” Shiro said as he took his last few steps.   


The glow of the holoscreen almost blinded him. Once his vision was used to the light, he got to work. Shiro spent most of this next step with Pidge guiding him through the program and helping him shut it down. Thanks to the expert hacker, all Shiro had to do now was download the data into his arm, which she would later extract.   


There was only one problem. The data didn’t exist.   


“Well?” came Pidge’s expectant voice. “Did you get it or not? Shiro?”   


Shiro didn’t answer her. He shook his head as he hovered over the key panel, banging a fist onto it in useless despair. Narti had retrieved the data while he was strangled  unconscious. Just coming to grips with the truth made him want to vomit. How he was going to tell the others, he didn’t know. The words weighed heavy on his tongue as the Black Lion’s aura moved through him, signaling her arrival.   


Shiro climbed into her cockpit and left the base.   


* * *

 

Allura glowered at all of Team Voltron, with Coran standing not too far from her side. His expression was less furious, but still troubled by the botched mission’s events.   


She stood in the center of the lounge with her arms folded, while the others spread out on the in-ground couch. Shiro sat closer to the edge of it, doing his best to isolate himself and hide from them. He hunched over with his eyes downcast as he tried to make sense of everything.   


It was all he could do to deal with her anger, the brunt of which she reserved for him. “You told us you had a plan. If there were faults with it, you should’ve said something,” Allura reiterated.   


“Whoa, this is Narti we’re talking about, okay?” Hunk chimed in. “She even kicked Pidge’s butt the first time we fought them, and she didn’t even touch her!” The yellow paladin turned sheepishly towards Shiro. “Uh, n-no offense.” 

“I don’t care which of them it was,” Allura fired back. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

As a surprise to no one, Keith was the second one to jump to Shiro’s defense. “It could’ve been his arm. Maybe it just malfunctioned.” 

Allura whipped her head around to glare daggers at Keith. “That is no excuse. We ran tests before heading out to that base so that something like this wouldn’t occur.”   


Several members of the team went back and forth trying to come up with explanations. Most of what the other paladins had to say was true. Some of it was outlandish enough to rightfully piss off their first-in-command even more. But no one got to the heart of the problem, and quite frankly, Shiro didn’t want them to. He’d skirt around this elephant in the room if he could, even as it threatened to crush him if he didn’t just spit it out.   


“I think I know what went wrong…” Shiro said at long last.   


Everyone in the room quieted to a hush. The same realization that had dawned on him   at the base now dawned upon the Earthlings, who looked at each other with worry and grim faces.   


“Well, someone had better start explaining it to _me_ ,” Allura demanded. 

Lance volunteered. “On earth, there’s this thing called a soulmate. It’s a person that gets assigned to you from the day you’re born.” 

“You’re supposed to be with them forever. It’s really, really hard to find someone else if you reject yours. And as long as that person’s your soulmate, you aren’t allowed to kill them,” Pidge added.   


“No matter what you do,” Keith said.   


Another moment of silence went by as the details of the ordeal sunk into Shiro’s mind. His head lay in his hands as he massaged his forehead and face. Now in his civilian clothes, he could feel the warm touch of Keith’s hand rubbing his back. 

Allura cast an appalled look around the lounge. “Of all the nonsensical-” she cut herself off, pinching the bridge of her delicate nose. “As soon as we are all in better condition, we are hunting Lotor down and taking that data from him.”   


“But princess-” Coran started to say. 

“Shiro will need an extra session in the cryo-replenishers,” she went on without regard for her advisor’s protest. “The rest of you can train until then.” Allura called the meeting to a close and dismissed her paladins to the deck.   


Keith stayed behind to comfort Shiro some more, reluctant to leave his seat.   


Shiro urged the red paladin to get going. “I’ll be okay,” he promised, mustering up the best smile he had in him, though Shiro knew it was a weak one. 

Skepticism clouded Keith’s features, but he obeyed his second-in-command and joined the others.   


Shiro went to go spend that time in a cryo-replenisher as he was told, when Allura walked by him and stopped a little ways ahead.   


“I will kill her myself, if that is what it comes down to,” the princess warned. Her icy eyes froze him to the bone before she continued walking.   


Shiro said nothing to that. He knew he should let Allura finish the job. It would be the right thing to do. But the thought of letting his only soulmate die disturbed him more than he cared to admit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to keylimepidge for coming through in a pinch to beta read the draft for me. <333


End file.
